


Spat out

by friendlydeathray



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coda, Dean-Centric, Drug Use, Episode: s11e17, Gen, Hospitalization, Hospitals, Hurt Dean, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institutions, OD, Protective Sam Winchester, Seizures, Self-Esteem Issues, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, Vomiting, red meat
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2017-08-28
Packaged: 2018-05-30 17:35:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6433843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/friendlydeathray/pseuds/friendlydeathray
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>CODA to S11 EP 17 'RED MEAT' - After Dean's drug over dose he starts to experience some serious side effects that land him in urgent care. Sam has no idea what is wrong with his brother and when he finally finds out the truth about what Dean did, Dean's insecurities and mental health issues have to be spoken about.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this cause you don't just over dose, not get any real follow up medical attention and just go home all fine and dandy! Also cause i like to make dean cry lol. enjoy. Leave comments! xo

 

“What did you do… when you thought I was dead?” Sam asked with an expression that was meant to be neutral. Dean could still see the implicit concern in his brothers’ eyes, an expression tinted by years of experience that had taught Sam his brother wasn’t stable in these situations and prone to doing something crazy. Dean’s faced dropped, the anxiety that had been chasing him all day was pooling in his stomach and bubbling into his chest. He swallowed a clump of saliva that was threatening to finish the job and just choke him to death.

He decided not to tell Sam what had really happened and opted for the classic ‘I knew it would be ok’ type response that had gotten him out of explanations before. He didn’t want to admit to Sam that he _really had_ thought Sam was dead and as a result had been in a state of total shock, sick to the stomach with grief, so unable to deal with it that he had decided he’d (temporarily) kill himself to bargain with a reaper. Yeahhhh the whole sorry episode was just too revealing… it doesn’t matter how much he told Sam _“I knew I’d be brought back by the doctor, it was a calculated risk”,_ Sam would still look at him with that same little flicker of concern in his eyes that said ‘Yeah but you wouldn’t have cared if they didn’t bring you back either”. And he’d be right.

Dean knew that no matter how he spun it, the reality was he _had_ attempted suicide… for real. Yes, a last ditch attempt at bringing Sam back was on the table but if Sam had turned out dead, Dean knew deep down that he wouldn’t have wanted the doctor to resuscitate him. Maybe now, driving home with his brother in the seat beside him Dean didn’t want to kill himself, but the fact that Sam was literally the only thing giving him a will to live kind of scared him. A doctor would say that for year’s Dean has been the kind of suicidal that wasn’t overt but instead manifested itself in reckless behavior, binge drinking and not giving a shit about himself. He thought that if no one ever mentioned it or talked about it then it wouldn’t be real… so he told Sam nothing.

 

As Dean pulled the car away from the hospital he huffed uneasily. Sam was shuffling in his seat grimacing slightly with discomfort. The wound was itchy and tugging bluntly at his skin but the worst of it was over and he had received a hearty dose of pain meds to tide him over. Dean on the other hand had just gone through a serious overdose with a severe concussion and broken ribs and had virtually no medical attention for his efforts… in his mind it was no big deal, after all Sammy was the one that was really hurt.

 

Just as he thought that, a wave of nausea hit him like a punch in the throat. His head was already pounding worse than any hangover he ever had before. He’d been expecting some hangover-like feelings after ingesting that many pills but he was pretty sure OD’ing on top of a concussion was taking it to a whole other level. The road looked a bit fuzzy.

“Dean are you ok?” Sam said, his voice sounded under water, “You look really clammy.”

“Hmm?” Dean hummed back at him, retightening his grip on the wheel. His head was throbbing like a jackhammer was wedged just under the surface of his skin.

“I said you look like shit” Sam repeated, the concern face now at 100%.

“I’m fine… I got a couple broken ribs” Dean conceded. He figured telling him a tiny bit of truth would tide him over.

“Did you get them looked at?” Sam asked.

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine they just hurt is all, nothing I haven’t been through before Sammy ok? Now just… shhh” Dean turned up the radio. Sam looked at him with a repressed frown tight on his lips.

 

Sam shrugged and leant against the window ready for a few hours of car sleep. Just as he was drifting off he felt the car sway madly to one side, he jumped up with a fright.

“Dean!” he grabbed the wheel across his brother yanking the car away from the cold shoulder of the road.

“Jesus!” Sam shouted.

“Fuck” Dean muttered, “Sorry I was… looking at my phone”

“No you weren’t” Sam growled, “Did you just fall asleep at the wheel?”

Dean didn’t respond, he just tightened his grip on the wheel and sucked in a breath, narrowing his eyes, forcing himself to concentrate.

“Dean!”

“I’m fine Sam! _You_ need to get some rest though ok so just relax” Dean said, his words heavy, “you almost _died_ today, do you get that?” Dean looked at him with that fractured expression that was a combination of very serious and (if you knew what you were looking for) an effervescing nasty note of anxiety and hopelessness.

Sam stared at him for a while longer, he noticed a slight tremor was running through his brothers fingers, reverberating up his arms and his face was clammy flush with a sickly pallor and a grimy layer of sweat.

“Dean pull - ” before Sam could finish his sentence Dean yanked the car to the side of the road, put it into park and threw open his door. In a flailing panic he fell from the car and retched violently into the damp grass beneath.

“Dean! Shit” Sam hastily pulled himself from the car, holding one hand to his side to protect his wound. He rushed around to Dean who was now shaking and still puking.

“What is happening?” Sam said mostly to himself as he rubbed his brothers back. Dean let out another few gagging coughs and spat white bubbly vomit onto the ground. He was shuddering aggressively beneath Sam’s hand, his skin felt warm even through his shirt, the smell of stomach-bile acrid in the air.

“Dean…” Sam said gently almost pleadingly, “It’s ok… come on man, you’ll be ok” he said as he rubbed his back. Dean broke eye contact with the ground finally and looked at Sam for a trembling moment, his eyes were red and glossy with tears. When Dean looked at Sam he saw his dead lifeless body laying on the floor and the countless other times Sam or his other loved ones had been in that position. That familiar stabbing despair ready to hollow him out. For a moment Sam swore Dean was going to start crying, he waited in the pregnant pause. But instead, Sam saw the shutters go up as Dean locked everything down. He let out a sharp breath and straightened himself up.

“I’m cool,” he said simply before sliding himself back inside the car. Sam stood by the door staring at the space where dean had been crouched, dazed.

When he got back in the car Dean was already pretending like that didn’t happen.

“I need gas if we’re gonna drive straight back to the bunker” he said casually.

“What?” Sam replied, “you just threw up dude shouldn’t we like stop in a motel or something get a bit of rest?”

Dean looked at him considering this for a moment, “Fine.”

“Can you drive?” Sam asked noticing how Dean was screwing up his face with that expression he did when he had a bad headache.

Dean pulled the car back onto the road without replying, while Sam stared at him, at a loss for words. He knew that something had happened to Dean while they were separated, what he couldn’t figure out was why Dean would act like nothing did.

“What happened today Dean?” Sam said carefully, “Did you get hurt other than the ribs?”

“Jesus, enough!” Dean snapped back, electric with tension.

“Okay…” Sam said like a question.

“Relax it’s nothing…” Dean ground out, “just been a shit day.”

A motel came up sooner than expected, Sam thanked god for the _Roadside Inn._

He watched Dean cross the car park from the office holding a set of keys, he looked wobbly and far off, like he wasn’t even there.

 

On automatic pilot, Dean unlocked the motel room door, dumping his stuff on the far bed. The thumping in his head had started at the back of his eyes now, he felt as though they might explode out of the sockets. He groaned and sat down on the bed, but before he could kick back and rest a second he got hit but yet another wave of nausea. He jumped up, jarring his broken ribs, and dashed for the toilet. “Are you ok!” Sam shouted out after him, the concern clear in his voice.

Dean hunched over the toilet and puked out his empty stomach as he got an ample nosefull of the affronting scene of disinfectant cleanser.

“Oh god why do all motels use this fuckin’ stinkin’ cleaning prod -” another gagging vomit interrupted him, “fuck” he groaned. Sam was at his side now, hovering over him, he could feel his hand moving softly on his back. Sam always did the same thing whenever Dean puked, he could always be counted on for a soft back rub.

“Dean something’s wrong… maybe you have a concussion,” Sam offered as Dean gagged again. When the painful retching finally ended Dean straightened himself, sitting his back against the wall beside the toilet. Why did Sam have to look at him like that, why did Sam have to give a shit about him? It made Dean feel guilty for not giving a shit about himself.

Maybe Billie saying that he didn’t seem like the suicide type was what was grinding on him… maybe it was the fact that after she said that the immediate thought that popped into his head was ‘Yeah I am?’ That thought was rolling around and around his head now, gathering other thoughts to support its theory. All the guilt and self loathing and the death and trauma that Dean kept locked inside him was collecting like a snowball clattering down a steep hill.

“I d’nno” he slurred, the room was starting to spin, the edges blurring, “Fuckin’ no good for nothin’ why’d we do this hunt hmm? Shoulda just told dad no, aye?” he said, his eyes drifting shut with each word that slurred out.

Sam stared at him, “Dad?... Dean what the hell are you talking about?”

“It’s all just a big…. Crap” he said.

“Dean are you…” Sam stopped mid sentence when he noticed Dean’s eyes had shut completely and he was slumped lifelessly, “Dean? Dean!” he shouted, feeling frantically for his brother pulse. It was weak but there.

“Shit, shit, shit… Dean, come on bud wake up” he said urgently. But Dean was well and truly out.

Moments later he started to seize.

“Oh my god … Dean!” Sam spat out, as he grabbed his brothers shaking body and turned it on its side so he wouldn’t choke, “oh fuck, oh fuck… Dean! Please” the attack lasted a few moments longer as Sam watched helplessly. Dean’s whole body was vibrating and see-sawing rabidly as he made low keening groans. Sam wanted to cry.

Dean finally stopped moving, “Can you hear me? Are you ok? Dean?”

“Mmm” was all the came out, “What happen’d”

“You had a seizure… come on can you get up? You need to get onto the bed,” Sam said as he gently helped dean stand. The two of them heaved themselves upright creakily, clutching at their injuries.

“Oh fuck” Dean managed to say.

By the time Sam got dean to the bed, another seizure started.

“Dean! Fuck!” Sam screamed. He didn’t know why this was happening or what he should do. He decided to act like a normal person for one second and do the normal person thing… call an ambulance.

“I know you’re gonna kill me but I have to” he says to Dean’s half unconscious body.

While they waited Sam placed a pillow under Dean’s head, gently rolled Dean onto his side, and pushed his jaw forward to keep him breathing. This seizure lasted longer than the first, which Sam knew was a bad sign.

By the time the paramedics arrived Dean had been on seizure cycle, rinse and repeat, over and over. Sam was near hysterics.

“Have the seizures lasted more than 5 minutes?” one paramedic asked. He was a tall man with a sweet but stressed face.

“Uh the first was a couple minutes… the uh…” Sam looked over that the other two paramedics lifting Dean onto a stretcher, his breath hitched, “then he had a couple more… both were 3 or so minutes I think,” he said, his voice was weak and cracking. He hated seeing Dean in pain.

Dean was semi-conscious by the time they had him in the back of the ambulance. Sam sat beside him as they sped towards the hospital, looking down at him as Dean’s eyes searched for something to anchor on. He looked lost and delirious.

 

Sam paced around the waiting room for more than an hour before someone came to get him. A doctor with long blonde hair tied back in a neat pony tail introduced herself as “Doctor Barnett.”

“Your brother is stable now you can come and see him” she smiled weakly.

Dean was laying in bed in a hospital gown with an oxygen mask on. Sam remembered the last time he saw Dean look so vulnerable in a hospital and his breath caught in his throat.

“Dean” he said softly.

Dean finally looked at him like he actually knew where he was, “hey Sammy” he whispered.

“You look like shit” Sam half laughed, he could see Dean crack a small smile.

“You look even worse” he said trying to achieve from levity but falling flat.

The doctor cleared her throat, “Ok so Mr. Smith, we’ve taken you through a barrage of tests this afternoon and given you some medication, so now that you’re stable I need to ask you a few questions ok?” Dean nodded, “is it ok for your brother to be in here while we talk?”

Dean looked at Sam for a moment as though he wanted to say no. Sam shot him a questioning look as if to say _don’t you dare push me away_.

Dean nodded again.

“Alright so we noticed you have a few broken ribs when we did a scan so can you tell me when that happened there?” she said.

Dean pulled down the mask and said hoarsely, “Earlier today I was….”

“Attacked” Sam filled in.

“Attacked?” she asked.

“Yes.” Sam said bluntly with a stern face.

“Uh ok so you were attacked and broke your ribs… anything else?”

Dean sighed, this was actually pretty fucking serious he thought to himself as he looked around the stark white room and felt the incredible pain coursing through him… he needed to let go of a few nuggets of truth.

“Uhm the… attacker… choked me and you know it was a pretty nasty fight I got a pretty bad concussion the doctor said,” he spluttered out the end of the sentence guiltily. Sam glared at him.

“Doctor?” she questioned.

“Uh yeh after the attack I tried to resist going to the hospital but the sheriff tasered me and took me in anyway so uh- ”

“Tasered?” Sam and the doctor asked in unison.

Dean looked between them awkwardly, “yeah…”

Sam sighed.

“Ok so did you get treatment for all this at the other hospital?” she asked, looking confused.

“Uh no not really… I left before they could” Dean muttered.

“Right ok… well… Traumatic head injury is most likely the cause of your problem but our tests don’t indicate any sign of actual epilepsy”

“What does that mean?” Sam asked”

Before the doctor could continue Dean gagged and spluttered out a huge mouthful of puke.

“Shit!” Sam shouted as he jumped back away from the spray.

Dean groaned, “ugh not again” he felt light headed all of a sudden. His breathing became shallow and pained as his eyes fluttered half shut. In a moment there were more hands in the room, fussing over him, pushing Sam back. Dean’s heart rate was rising dangerously and his breathing was getting weaker.

“What the hell is going on!” Sam shouted over the noise of the machines.

“Please just wait!” the doctor snapped back.

“We may have to intubate him?” a nurse suggested as Dean struggled for air.

“No just wait, get the Venturi oxygen mask back on him” the doctor said.

Sam ran his hands through his hair straining to see over the people crowding around Dean’s bed. He had no idea what any of them were doing but they all looked frantic and busy.

Dean groaned and hunched himself forward, doubling himself over with his arms wrapped around his stomach.

“Abdominal pain” someone noted. Dean made a horrific groaning sound.

“Dean!” Sam shouted, “fuck, fuck… what is happening”

“Get him out of here please” the doctor ordered.

A male nurse started herding Sam from the room, “No! please” Sam pleaded as the man shoved him out.

Exasperated Sam stood by the door, staring through the small glass window.

Another doctor, a man with a thick black mustache, shoved past Sam with a stack of papers in his hand. For the moment that the door was open Sam could hear a burst of noise, and then it was gone again.

 

Inside, doctor Wallace entered with Dean’s blood test results.

“What’s going on here?” he said.

“He has abdominal pain, delirium, headache, shallow breathing… I don’t know - ” doctor Barnett was cut off by Doctor Wallace handing her the papers.

She read them quickly shaking her head, “He never mentioned this” she said annoyed.

“Not surprised” Wallace responded.

She sighed, “Okay Activated Charcoal and naloxone Hydrochloride” she barked at the nurses, who quickly followed her instructions.

 

Sam watched as the two doctors discussed the papers with annoyed expressions he wondered what the fuck was going on. They looked like they had made a decision on something. The nurses were suddenly moving with more purpose. Eventually Dean lay back in the bed, still looking pained but at least not critical. Doctor Wallace came back out of the room, nodding gently at Sam as he went. Sam needed to get back in there.

 

“Mr. Smith your blood test results show… well, first of all that you have poor liver function… but leaving that aside for now, they also show a high amount of barbiturates…. Phenobarbital… can you explain to me what that is about?” Doctor Barnett asked, trying to remain calm and accessible.

Dean stared at her with hopelessness plain on his face. His eyes were wet and his mouth down turned, but there was still a look on him that showed a steadfast resolve to not tell anyone what had _really_ happened today.

“Okay because it looks to me like you overdosed… like you tried to kill yourself” just as the words left her mouth, Sam re-entered the room.

Dean shot Sam a look of wide-eyed terror. _SHIT!_

“Oh sorry” the doctor said, awkwardly.

“What?” Sam whispered, as he slowly moved towards the bed.

“Sam I…” Dean muttered.

Sam crumpled onto the seat beside Dean, he looked like he was holding back a mixture of explosive anger and dejected helplessness.

His hands were balled into tight fists, he breathed out slowly and released them, “What the fuck is going on Dean please… please just tell me” Sam was doing that kicked puppy face.

Dean really did start crying this time. The tears were controlled like always, as though Dean was doing his best to stop them but just couldn’t hold back the dam.

“Sam… just” he said, “I can’t…”

The doctor was looking at them both, frowning, “Mr Smith… Can you please tell me what happened with the barbiturates? I need to know how long they’ve been in your system, how many you took…. “ She said softly.

Dean looked at the doctor and then at Sam. Both of them were giving him this pitying look that was making him feel cornered.

“It’s not… ” he stammered, “I….” tears were still leaving greasy tracks down his cheeks but he seemed not to notice. Dean didn’t know what the fuck to say. Normally he and Sam would have had a moment alone where Dean could go _“I’m fine Sammy, let’s just get the hell outta here”_ and sign out ‘against medical advice’ before Sam ever got a chance to find out what was going on. But this time he was cornered. His head was still excruciating, the throb was like a drum beat in his temples and behind his eyes… he could feel that same pounding beat wrecking his stomach too. His chest was tight and leaden, even his limbs felt weird and heavy.

“Nothing happened, I have no idea what that’s about” Dean said unconvincingly.

“Dean” Sam said as though Dean was a recalcitrant dog.

“Sam! I said I DON’T KNOW” Dean shouted, giving him a warning expression.

The doctor didn’t flinch, “Did this happen before or after you were at the other hospital? Because if you’ve overdosed that is something I really need to know” she said.

Dean grimaced, scrunching his eyes shut then letting out a sharp exhale, “During…” he said quietly.

“During?” she asked, shocked, “You mean while you were IN the other hospital?”

Dean didn’t respond.

“Ok so did you overdose and if so did they administer any treatment?” she asked, she was trying to force herself to not get annoyed at this patient. She had been on call for 24 hours and didn’t really need a patient so keen on not letting her do her job.

“Yes and yes” Dean whispered, defeated.

Dean couldn’t bring himself to look at Sam but he could tell he was fuming.

“Did they pump your stomach?”

“No”

“So you attempted suicide while in a hospital and were resuscitated… and then what?”

“I left immediately after” he said not even noticing or bothering to correct her ‘suicide’ insinuation.

The doctor looked stunned, “Right… ok so… what has happened here is even though you were resuscitated the other doctors didn’t really do a complete job of it… you must have left so quickly the doctors were unable to administer any aftercare… and because they most likely treated the overdose with adrenaline shot - ”

“Yeah they did” Dean filled in

The doctor continued, “- even if you were vomiting and seizing during the OD, most of the drugs were still sitting in your digestive system and seeping into your blood stream… so that plus the concussion led to later onset seizures and essentially a secondary set of over dose symptoms… so what I’m going to do is put you on a psychiatric hold while we keep pumping you with activated charcoal, which binds with any left over drugs in your system and flushes them out okay? Then I will get you on IV fluids to bring your strength back up” she smiled a tight, concerned smile.

“Wait” Dean said, “Psych hold? I don’t need a goddamn... ”

The doctor cut him off, “It’s protocol Mr Smith and actually we can keep you here that is the nature of a psych hold”

“He’ll be okay right?” Sam tried to change the subject slightly. He noted the annoyed look on Dean’s face.

“Yeah I think we’ve past the worst of it, now we know what it is we can flush it all out… and hopefully there aren’t any other complications.”

“Right” Sam whispered.

After the doctor left, the two boys sat in tense silence.

Finally Dean murmured, “I’m sorry”

“You’re sorry?” Sam barked, “what the hell Dean? Explain. Now”

Dean sighed, “I did think you were dead ok? When I left the cabin you had no pulse Sam… nothing” Dean said, “Then I found the sheriff to take the others into town and I was going to go back for you but he tried to stop me, so I may have punched him”

“May have?”

“Ok I punched him… then he tasered me and next thing I know I’m in a hospital and the doctor is trying to force me to stay there too and all I could think of is your dead body lying on the floor of that creepy ass cabin” Dean closed his eyes for a moment, breathing in as his voice shook, “I uh… I palmed a fuckin’ cabinets worth of pills so I could talk to a reaper and bargain you back” he looked down at his hands and let out a sharp breath, “I couldn’t just let you die Sam okay”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Sam said shaking his head in dismay.

“Because we’ve been through this over and over and I know you wouldn’t want me to bring you back… so I… I knew that if you knew I’d tried to, you would think I’m … I dunno, that I have no other reason to live but looking out for you and that’s just… pathetic… I know you want me to get over that old albatross but well there you have it” Dean’s voice was tired and fragile, the embarrassment clear on his face, “now can we get out of here?”

Sam looked up from the spot on the blanket he had been staring at, “What? Dean you tried to kill yourself? You need to just let them look after you”

“They’re going to lock me in a psych ward” Dean said with a questioning expression like _what the fuck aren’t you getting about this?_

Sam didn’t respond.

“I didn’t _actually_ try to kill myself Sam, I knew the doctors were there and they’d bring me back… and it was the only thing I could do” Dean pleaded.

“Dean. Seriously. Do you think I’m stupid? Once again you get in a position where you feel totally hopeless and depressed and what do you do? You make a decision that is just a suicide attempt thinly veiled by some sort of urgent cause to save someone” Sam ranted, he could feel the bullet wound starting a dull throb, “It happened with Hell, it happened with the mark… and you know what? You have been an alcoholic for years, you’ve repeatedly made these crazy reckless decisions whenever you’re in a bad place, and by the way I know your PTSD is _not_ getting better… I can hear you shout in your sleep every night”

“Yeah and you’re one to talk!”

“I’ve gone through shit yes but I don’t take it in like you, I can get over things or at least deal with them… you just bottle it all in and let it rot” Sam said, he knew it was a bit harsh but Dean needed to hear it, “and that’s not to say I’m stronger than you in anyway its just that you take everything like it just adds to this ever expanding pile of crap that informs your self belief that you’re a terrible person”

“Yeah ok Freud… you think you’re better adjusted than me that’s what you’re saying?” Dean said sounding a little offended.

“Well out of the two of us I am the one who had someone bringing me up and shouldering everything for me… you didn’t really have anyone” Sam said, his voice now soft and apologetic, “so I just think we grew up differently.”

Dean tried to sigh but instead it came out like a whimper.

“You’re going to make me stay here?” Dean said under his breath.

“Yeah Dean you know what? For once I am going to do what a normal person would do… cause guess what? You and I are actually still human beings” Sam frowned at his brother who was now looking straight ahead with that thousand mile stare of his. He looked hurt.

“I haven’t felt like one in a long time” Dean whispered.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hellooo back again. It's been a while but I decided to carry on with this story so hereee we go

The relative calmness quickly expired and Dean's cornered panic set in.  _Sam is really going to do this,_ he thought, the feeling of betrayal spiking his heart rate towards a panicked percussion. 

Dean removed the IV lines with shaky hands, “If you think I’m staying here you are out of your damn mind” he said as he pushed back the sheets ready to escape.

Sam wasted no time in moving into Dean’s personal space, “Dean” Sam warned, pawing him to sit back in the bed. Dean shoved Sam back a step, giving him a moment to make it to his feet. But then Sam was back again, dogged as ever, standing less than a foot away from Dean with his hands out wide like he was heading off a loose horse, “Stop, just get back in bed. I’m not letting you leave.”

“Move!” Dean shouted, dodging left and right as Sam followed suit. The dance went on for a moment longer, Dean’s face heavy with exasperation.

“Stop it!”

“You stop it”

Dean decided to barrel shoulder first at Sam in an attempt to bust past him, but this was met, not by Sam’s usual hard faced determination, but by a gasp of pain.

“Oh shit!” Dean paused as Sam clutched his injured side, “sorry!”

Sam held up a hand, “just… shh” he breathed in and out through the pain. Dean sunk back onto the edge of the bed, watching his brother aching. Feeling a familiar gut deep, pounding guilt he covered his face with his hands and sighed in the silence. This had successfully defused the situation, that was for sure.

Finally Sam brought himself back to standing upright, his expression tight with pain, “Dean” he said in that way he always did, in that way that sounded less like a name and more like a sound of rebuke.

“Yeah” Dean muttered, feeling like a kid who broke an antique vase while playing indoors.

“If you don’t stay here I am not letting you back in the bunker” Sam said slowly. He didn’t know if he was doing the right thing in saying that but he figured the only thing Dean would listen to is a threat.

“What?” Dean frowned, “are you being serious?” he let out a humourless laugh.

“I don’t know what else you will listen to… I have been letting you get away with hiding your problems, both of us ignoring them, pretending it isn’t really an issue… but think about the last couple years Dean, you have been through the ringer, seriously, and we've never stopped to actually consider the effect it's all had on you... And, I think this whole horrible day has shown me that we can't keep sweeping it under the rug" Sam paused as the two of them took in his words, and then changing tone he continued, " and, I don’t want to make you feel bad, but a lot of the bad stuff that’s happened has been because you are still making decisions based on your problems rather than being rational. Either you stay here or you have to stop hunting at this rate.”

Dean stared at him, gutted, “You’re still mad at me about Gadreel and the Mark and all that crap aren’t you”

Sam sighed, “I’m not mad, I'm just saying I don't want to enable this avoidance and I know I’m not perfect and I make some stupid decisions but at least I deal with it… like when my hell wall started breaking your suggestion was to…” Sam laughed as if to say _honestly what the fuck,_ “uh take some unlabelled drugs and… what did you say uh let it out with bursts of ‘violence and alcoholism’? That is your go-to and it is not healthy, and in the long run it _does_ effect your life and especially effects our work” Sam huffed, feeling as though he wasn’t quite saying what he meant, “What I’m saying I guess is that I need you to be okay… what you did with Billy? The second I’m gone, you think ‘either get Sam back or that’s it, I’m out’?” Sam paused to really look at Dean, “That is not good at all, that is not helping anyone… you are not okay.”

Dean shook his head with a dark huff that rolled into a mirthless pained laugh. He ran his fingers through his hair, “well fuck. How long have you been holding all this back jeez. I don't think you've ever even said this many words to me in one go before.”

They both stared at random spots in the middle distance as the silence crept in.

Dean felt cornered, he would never truly agree out loud that he had a problem but in the face of such unmoving, insurmountable persistence from Sam something inside him started to whisper _if he’s THIS sure, maybe he is right._

“Fine,” Dean said barely above a whisper, his face now tight with pain. He realised in all his machismo that he probably still needed to be hooked up to whatever was in that drip anyway.

“Fine?” Sam said, surprised.

“I’ll stay okay just don’t make it a whole thing,” Dean lay back on the bed, and slid the IV line back in the vein with a grimace, “damn did it first try hah! Better than a qualified nurse Sammy,” he half laughed, a stupid grin on his face. Sam smiled with one side of his mouth recognising Dean’s jokes for what they were, _deflection._

“You’re actually going to stay and do what they say, okay” Sam still wasn’t buying it.

“Whatever” Dean grumbled, staring blankly at a spot on the ceiling. He felt like shit, his whole body was weak and his brain was still moving a couple paces faster than his body could react which was always a bad sign. He felt as though no matter how much he wanted to get out of here, he really did need to stay at least long enough for them to pump the drugs out of his system. He would deal with what came next later.

 

What came next happened sooner rather than later it turned out.

 

The final infusion of activated charcoal and the IV fluids only took a few more hours and then it was time to face the music.

Doctor Barnett returned with a psychiatrist by the name of Doctor Parker, a kind faced woman with dark glowing skin and braided hair bundled in a large bun.

“Hey there Dean, my name is Doctor Parker, I’ll be helping you over to your new room okay? How’re you feeling?” she said in one breath.

“Uh not great” Dean said, staring at his hands, he vaguely felt the sensation of Sam patting him on the arm. Was that meant to be comforting?

“Okay well I have spoken a bit to Doctor Barnett and we agreed keeping you for monitoring for 72 hours is the best course of action here. So before I move you on over to the other ward, I want to first have a quick chat with you and your brother in my office. Yes?”

“Mmhmm” Dean felt himself shutting down.

Sam could sense it too, “Yes that sounds fine thank you” he filled in.

Dean got out of bed with an aching apprehension, Doctor Barnett patted him on the shoulder as he stood, “you’ll be okay don’t worry,” she smiled.

He nodded at her and moved towards Sam and Dr. Parker, heavy footed and empty hearted, like a death march. He needed to remind himself over and over that he was really doing this for Sam. 

 

Dr. Parker’s office was on another floor of the building, in a wing accessed through locked doors. Dean could feel his stomach dropping as her key card beeped them open.

He clutched onto Sam’s arm, “dude this is…” he whispered.

Sam frowned, cutting him off “come on its just 72 hours you’ll be okay.”

Dean shook his head, a shaky breath escaping along to the sound of the locked doors shutting behind them.

Dr. Parker opened her office door and gestured with an outstretched hand for them to enter. Sam had to push Dean slightly to get him inside. The office was decorated with a number of potted plants and abstract blue and white paintings, there was a grey couch at one end and a desk at the other. 

“Now,” Dr. Parker said as she moved around to the back of her desk, gesturing for them to sit at the two chairs before it, “I am going to ask you a few questions okay?”

Dean and Sam both nodded as they sat. Weirdly they had been through this process once before when they had to get into the psychiatric hospital to help crazy Martin with the wraith case, so it was oddly familiar to be sitting in two chairs facing a psychiatrist.

She began by getting his basic information, and then moved on to questions about his childhood. Dean felt himself defending and lessening his childhood but unfortunately Sam and his rational thinking was there to correct.

“Dean pretty much raised me, our mom died when I was 6 months old and Dean was 4, after that our dad lost it, and Dean was left to look after things. Our dad was never around and when he was he was always either drunk or training Dean, and later me, to shoot… he always placed a lot of expectation on Dean, he wasn’t ever allowed to mess up,”

“That’s not true, dad was doing his best” Dean attempted.

“Don't minimise” Sam snapped. Dean stared at him mouth agape, he snapped it shut and slumped into the chair.

Dr. Parker laughed a little at that, “you are very right Sam” she said.

“Dean has been through a lot,” Sam said, looking at his brother, who was grimacing and had the expression of a child who was going to hold their breath until they turned blue, “he’s uh…ex-special ops. And him and I also do uh bounty hunting stuff so uh…” Sam blurted, unable to come up with a better comparison to everything Dean went through with Purgatory and hell. Dean shot him a furrowed brow look of annoyance.

“Oh wow really” she said, with genuine surprise, “don’t hear that everyday, go on.”

Sam looked at Dean, waiting for him to talk but he was sitting with his arms crossed and his jaw clamped shut, working his teeth against each other. _If Sam wanted to fucking talk he was going to let him fucking talk._

“Uh well he has seen a lot and has a lot of nightmares and the times he’s got back he drinks like a fish and doesn’t sleep so that’s been a problem over the years. And I think just generally, the way we grew up, he get’s pretty down every time he thinks I’m gone or mad at him or whatever…” Sam looked at Dean, almost apologetic. He felt bad for putting words in Dean’s mouth but Dean seemed to remaining tight lipped and withdrawn on this one.

She nodded, really listening, “Dean would you mind if I direct some questions at you now?”

Dean shrugged, “whatever.”

She then launched into a very long ‘questionnaire,’ which was designed to identify areas of concern - anxiety, mania, depression, psychosis, sleeping issues, substance abuse issues, the whole gamete of mental illness. Pretty quickly Dean lost track of what he was even answering, he couldn’t tell which answers would make him seem crazy.

“Have you ever attempted suicide before this recent episode?” she asked, pen poised above her note pad.

Dean groaned, “it wasn’t a - ”

Sam interjected, “Yes. After dad died he kept putting himself in harms way like he was trying to get killed and was always saying how he should be dead… remember?” he said to Dean.

Dean just stared daggers back at him.

“When he is obviously in a bad mental place he has purposely done reckless things that could kill him with literally no thought or concern for his safety so many times I couldn’t count” Sam didn’t realise how mad he was at Dean until he started talking about this, “especially when someone close to us dies... which has happened a lot… Dean doesn’t cope.”

“Fuck you Sam” Dean muttered, "I'm still alive aren't I?"

"Not for lack of trying" Sam sniped back, immediately regretting it.

The doctor nodded, she could see the embarrassment and shame on Dean’s face and the heartbroken pain on Sam’s.

“Okay thank you for this boys I know this is hard” she smiled, her eyes round with empathetic worry, “From what I’ve heard over the past hour I think I can confidently give you a diagnosis, which I want to clarify is a good thing in this situation because it means we can start to get you the right sort of help okay?”

Dean noticed how often she said okay, as though she felt the need to constantly reassure him. He didn't want to hear her reassurance, he didn't want to hear her diagnosis. The reason he had never allowed himself to be in this situation before was because the second the diagnosis was said out loud, every thing became real and there was no going back. 

“I’m fine, really, I shouldn't be here” Dean grumbled, but at this point, in all honesty, he definitely did not feel fine. He thought about the time he told Jo’s ghost that he was 90% crap and if he got rid of that he wouldn’t know what to do. Well staring at Dr. Parker he wondered if he was about to find out.

“So you would definitely qualify for a diagnosis of clinical depression as well as PTSD, and then I would also definitely consider your alcohol intake and history to be at the level of alcoholism, substance abuse is very, very common with patients suffering from depression and PTSD” she paused.

Sam looked at Dean for a reaction, but he was just starting at his shoes.

“Dean” she said with a soft voice, “do you know what that means?”

He nodded slowly, “I guess.”

“Okay we are going to start you on some anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds and benzos for the alcohol withdrawal” she said as though speaking to a child, soft and comforting, “Now when you go through to the ward you will have access to group and one on one sessions with a psychologist and we will also put you on the list for AA, alright?”

A silence followed as Dean shook his head, his gaze stuck on a point on the floor. Finally he looked up, and spat out, “nope, nope, no fucking way.”

“Dean” again with that warning voice, “you've been through so much just in the past couple years alone, I dont -” Sam shook his head, holding something back, "I don't want to lose you again, please."

Dean looked at Sam, _really_ looked at him for the first time since they had entered the office, and all he could see was absolute desperation.

“Please” Sam whispered and Dean nodded.

 

Sam hugged Dean before they parted ways, he wondered if the hug was enough to make Dean _know_ how much he loved him and how proud of him he was. He decided he probably needed to hear it out loud, just this time.

“I love you and I’m proud of you for doing this” Sam told him as they parted from the hug.

Dean rolled his eyes, but the truth was he really did need to hear it.


	3. Chapter 3

Sam let the bunker door clatter shut behind him, echoing ungracefully through the cavernous silence. Sam didn’t mind being alone, in fact there were quite a few times in his life when he had adjusted pretty well to it, but now, knowing where Dean was he hated being in the bunker alone, the size of the place only served to emphasize the solitude he felt. He had dropped a bag of Dean’s things at the hospital before returning home to the bunker feeling worn out, every moment of this dragging experience was making him question his choice. The truth was he had been worried about Dean for years and years and although this point in time certainly wasn’t his lowest or the most urgent, it was the only time an opportunity had come up to do anything. He felt that he _had_ to do something, when the occasion had arisen. But now the doubts had set in as he wondered if he had just made a big deal out of nothing, _no, stop it,_ he reminded himself that the doctor had listened to all their honest answers and had given a professional diagnosis. At least he could hold onto the fact that she couldn’t and wouldn’t have done so if there was really nothing wrong with Dean. Maybe at the end of all this they could actually talk about their feelings like Sam had always wanted them to, and maybe that would be all they needed for everything to get better. Sam touched the bandages on his belly wrapped over the ridge of sutures, it was starting to ache again. He moved to his bed slowly, using the wall as a guide, took his pain pills and antibiotics and promptly fell asleep. He was on bed rest for pretty much the exact duration of Dean’s stay in hospital, so he decided to take the time to really look after himself, like he hadn’t done in a while.

 

Dean, on the other hand, had decided no such thing.

 

To his surprise, the short ‘tour’ of the small ward consisted solely of an orderly using his arm to gesture towards things, annotating with a lazy Cockney accent “common area ov’a there, eatin’ hall there, docs offices are down the right corridor, an’ your room is ‘ere, group is in room 2B, an’ you get your medications from there” he pointed to the nurses station. After, was basically just set free amongst the others to wander aimlessly in the common room. Freshly dressed in ‘indoor’ clothes Dean felt vulnerable and weak, something about being in pyjamas in this setting really did make him feel like a sick person and he did not like it. He walked around the edge of the common room taking note of his surroundings. There was a nurse’s station, which looked onto the common room through a reinforced glass window and a row of permanently shut windows along the opposite wall. The room itself was a messy assortment of couches and tables with chairs, and a TV on the far left. The entire place was grey, white and beige, all muted, calming colours he supposed. He was surprised to see most people seemed relatively normal, mostly just sitting around watching TV, reading, playing board games, some just staring at the wall. In his mind he had honestly expected to see people shouting at things that weren’t there, or rocking back and forth in a corner, but instead the place just seemed more like a drab waiting room. He walked towards the television set, which was playing some old black and white movie he didn’t recognise – a girl with a silk scarf wrapped loosely over her hair was driving a neat vintage convertible ignoring the man pleading at her from the passenger seat.

“You want to sit and watch?”

Dean was pulled from his focus on the television by the voice of an older woman, sitting on the couch. She had long grey-blonde hair pulled into a messy bun, some strands falling into her face from behind which she stared up at him with tired blue eyes.

“Uh… okay” Dean agreed, not really knowing what else to do with himself.

As he settled beside her on the scratchy grey couch, the woman held out her hand, “Ann” she said.

Dean shook her hand, “Dean,” he said simply.

She didn’t turn her attention back to the TV as he had expected her to, now that their little interaction had ended, instead she just seemed to be considering him, _really_ observing.

“Well, well what is a handsome man like you doing in a place like this?” she smiled.

Dean let out a chuckle, “Uh I don’t know, to tell you the truth.”

She was still really staring at him, “That’s _not_ the truth though is it” she said.

Dean looked at her quickly, and then up at the ceiling with a brief huff of irritation, “72 hour hold and my stupid brother wouldn’t help me get out of it so, here I am.”

She nodded with a smile, “Ahh I see” she rubbed his arm and the motherly look in her eyes made that pit of grief ache deep in Dean’s gut.

“It’s really not as bad as it seems,” she said, as though she knew he needed comforting. Dean wondered if his apprehension and shame were written across his forehead. She continued, “this place I mean. There is a lot of stigma around these places but it’s not at all like Cuckoo’s nest I promise. You’ll be okay.”

Dean nodded, attempting to smile, “I didn’t even do what they thought I did… not really… It’s a misunderstanding, so…” he rambled.

She looked at him sideways with a knowing smile on her lips, “I came in on one of those ‘misunderstanding’ 72 holds too you know… I decided to stay when I realized that it wasn’t a misunderstanding after all.”

Dean wished he could get up and go somewhere else, but the woman had her hand on his bicep like she was holding him there. Despite that, nothing about her was threatening or insistent; instead she was motherly, homely, someone with a deep warmth radiating through her pain. He wondered why someone like her would end up in here.

“So do you know what’s wrong with you yet?” she said with a light hearted, almost teasing tone. 

He snorted, smiling with one corner of his mouth, “Uh I think she said depression, ptsd, alcoholism” he counted them off on his fingers.

“Ah yes the holy trinity” she chuckled, “Have you ever gone through any of this…” she gestured around them with a fay hand gesture, “…before”

“You mean like doctors and all that crap?” he asked, and she nodded.

“uh yeh not so much, I’m not exactly one for uh emotions and… emotions,” Dean shook his head, with a tight laugh, “the closest I came was a while back when I lived with a girl for a year and she was always telling me to see a doctor” he laughed, “I was in a real bad place then but uh… no I haven’t been through any of this before to answer your question.”

“Too proud” she said, more like a statement than a question, “well it works I promise… now are you gonna come sit next to me in group then” she said with a grin, getting up slowly.

When Dean didn’t rise with her she stood waiting, “come on sweetheart, you wouldn’t let an old woman down like that would you?”

Dean still didn’t get up, “no, it’s okay I’m not going.” He felt strangely guilty for not going with her when she was clearly just trying to help him, knowing how hard it is here at first, out of personal experience. He reminded himself not to get too comfortable, not to let his guard down – but of all people who could have been friendly to him, a woman like her was the hardest to ignore. A woman who was so uncomplicatedly hospitable and most importantly, reminded him of the mother figure he had so longed for. Dean stared after her feeling something hard in his throat, he didn’t want to like anyone here, he didn’t want anyone to make him feel anything.

She nodded, obviously disappointed, “okay darling, that’s okay” she said, her brows creasing with something bordering on concern, “see you later then? Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” she winked and walked off with a group of others who were moving towards room 2B.

He had worked hard to build up the façade he had, which relied entirely on burying everything emotional, and if that façade broke down then so would he. He needed to keep that from happening or he wouldn’t be able to do his job… and who knows what else. He was already feeling a lot more shaky and raw than he usually did just by being here and that made him worried. He needed to do something.

 

He moved over to a table that had a view of both the nurses station and the exit. He needed to figure out how to get the hell out of here.

The nurses worked in shifts, but the changeovers were staggered so there was never a window of opportunity. Every door was operated by a key card, which were kept securely around the necks of all staff members. Unfortunately the kind of lasso the keys were attached to were strong and durable, they didn’t attach with a clip (which can be broken) but by a loop of the fabric. It wouldn’t be easy to get one of those off. He groaned, wondering if all this effort was worth it considering he only had to be here for two nights. But it was the principle of the thing, Dean Winchester had gotten out of worse scrapes than this, there was no way a bunch of nurses were going to trump him. He just needed to keep his resolve, not let himself get sucked in by anyone… no matter how sweet and motherly they were, or how well intentioned and likeable.

He decided to walk around a little to scope everything out. After exhausting the common room area he moved down the hall towards where Ann and the others had emptied out for group. On the left was a door, open, through which he could see a group of people sitting in a circle in an otherwise empty room. He heard Ann’s voice addressing the group, which gave him pause. He stood by the door, just out of view and listened for a moment.

“I have been thinking a lot about how much I relied on other people in my life, something I didn’t really notice until I lost everyone… I was a house wife, a mother, a protector to my little boy, and that was my job, that is what my mother had passed onto me, that it was my job to look after everyone and that was it. My mother was hopeless at doing that herself, she was not ‘well’ as people used to say… so I think a part of her telling me that was that she needed me to do the caring for her because she couldn’t. My father was an alcoholic too so it left a lot of the emotional labour to me, I looked after my siblings since I was very young. The problem is I grew up and I never cared about myself because I didn’t matter, first my siblings did, then my kids and my husband did, I had no dreams or hopes or interests, I was just there to protect and serve. So when they died I had nothing, no purpose, no anchor and I wanted to die. But now I am learning how to find a balance between still being that caring person that looks after others and still caring for and looking after myself. I’m still not okay but at least I know it now.”

The group clapped a little, shaking Dean out of his intense focus, he needed to forget about all these distractions and just focus on getting out of here. He turned to walk away from the door and almost clattered straight into Doctor Parker.

“Dean!” she exclaimed, “I was just coming to see if you had gone to group.”

“Obviously not” he grumbled.

“That’s okay, it’s up to you if you want to participate in group,” she said, smiling “ _but_ alas, you _are_ required to come to one on one sessions with me” she was way too chipper for Dean’s liking, “follow me” she said turning to walk towards her office.

 

Dean sat on the couch this time. It was a brand new couch he noted, still stiff with lack of use, the fibres still tight and clean. He wanted to take sandpaper to it, just to make it a little more worn, as though somehow it was more appropriate considering the people who would be sitting on it. He certainly felt worn down.

“So. Dean.” Doctor Parker started, sitting with one leg across her knee on top of which she balanced a file and note pad, “how are you settling in?”

“I’m not” he grumbled, “I shouldn’t be here.”

“We can talk a bit about your diagnosis if you would like?” she said, as though that was the questioned he had asked.

Dean just stared at her, unresponsive.

“Oookay, so typically the best form of treatment for all psychiatric conditions is a combination of medication and therapy, so as you know I have prescribed some medication which you will begin tonight and as for the latter, I would like it if you and I could use our limited time to get through some issues, yes?”

“No” Dean said flatly, he had resolved to not go easily this time, “To both”

She nodded her head, the braids that were collected into a sculpture like twisting bun on top of her head, didn’t move a single bit when she nodded. There was something weirdly hypnotic about her stillness.

“Can I ask why?” she said leaning towards him a little.

“Because there ain’t nothing wrong with me that can’t be fixed with some beer and good old fashioned bar brawlin’” Dean gave her his best cocky grin, the one he used to employ much more frequently when he was younger. Now he consciously knew it was not much more than a defence mechanism, but he buried that thought.

“Would you say that alcohol has been something that you use to make you feel good?” she asked.

“Yeah no one is denying alcohol makes you feel good” Dean shrugged.

“Yes it does” she chuckled, “we’ve all had some fun nights drinking right?” she had a hint of the mischievous in her eye as she said that, and Dean tried to picture her in a party dress, “it is very good at making bad things feel numb too… and It’s okay to use alcohol to help bury things, right?”

“Right” Dean said before he even knew what he was saying.

“So let me get this straight, you think it’s okay to use a substance to medicate a problem so that you can keep going, but you wont try actual medication? I mean it’s pretty much the same concept right, except that medication has way less side effects and actually can work” she was smiling now, quite satisfied.

Dean squirmed, he could feel the fucking prickly fibres of the too-new couch spearing him through his pants, “I – I uh” he fumbled for words, “it’s not the same.”

She shrugged, “I would argue they are the same… is it that you are embarrassed to need medication?” from Dean’s deer in the headlights expression, she nodded and continued, “if it were me, I would be much more shameful of using alcohol to function than needing medication.”

Dean grit his teeth, this woman was going to be the thing that drove him crazy. She was manipulative but in a way Dean had never really experienced except when it was coming out of his own mouth. She was analytical and calculating but with no malice at all, no intention to cause harm or to taunt him (unlike many demons who had taken opportunities to analyse him with the intention of breaking him). He didn’t know if he could really out smart her, because the truth was she was much, much more intelligent than he was… and he didn’t think himself dumb, mind you.

“I am fine lady, really” he grit out.

 

\--------

 

After a disgusting dinner and a demoralising accompanied trip to the bathroom Dean was laying in his tiny hospital issue bed, arms folded across his chest. He had kept to himself the whole rest of the day after his meeting with Doctor Parker, even at dinner time he had entered last to ensure he could sit alone. The only contact he had with other people had been forced, first with the nurses who had tried to encourage him to take the medication and then made a note on their whiteboard that he was not complying, and second was when a burly orderly had taken him to the shower room where he was forced to do everything in the open, presumably so he didn’t have a moment to off himself. He had never felt to gut wrenchingly humiliated as he had in this whole experience, he felt as though his entire persona was at odds with the place. And the worst part was he was starting to get the shakes now after not drinking for a couple days – it made him mad that his body could betray him like this, going behind his back to prove the doctor right despite his protestations that she was wrong about him. His head had been pounding since he OD’d but now he was pretty sure it was the lack of alcohol that was causing it. And lack of alcohol meant more thoughts.

 

The bedroom was small and a lot like a prison cell in one of those lush white-collar prisons he thought. There was a single bed against the wall, a small barred window beside it, below which was a night stand with no drawers, just legs and a table top, and on the opposite side of the room was a desk and a chair built into the floor. The desk had a couple of drawers under it, in which he could keep his clothes. The floor was the same white and blue linoleum as the rest of the place, which paired nicely with the depressing grey walls and textured grey ceiling. But it was definitely not any worse than any motel he’d stayed in.

He stared up at the ceiling, noticing the little hanging blobs of mole-like paint that made up its surface, like millions of tumors. It made him think of the ceiling in the motel he had trashed after he got Rudy killed. He felt a knife to the gut at that thought. It was something he had tried not to revisit and yet here it was stabbing him in the gut, just at the sight of ceiling paint. The truth was, Ruby was the least of his worries, he was not even in the top 20, and the thought of that made him sick. Charlie was still the freshest pain of them all, sometimes he heard her voice at random moments, a flash of memory that would stab him swiftly at any time. He knew it was his fault in the end, everything that had happened to her – if he hadn’t got the Mark of Cain she wouldn’t have died. And really he had only got the Mark because he was in a non-shaving, non-showering, drinking-in-a-dive-bar hole of self loathing and was being recklessly cavalier with his life. For the first time he realized where Sam was coming from with the whole bit about Dean’s mental health resulting in huge repercussions for everyone and at that thought he felt his stomach drop. He wondered who would still be alive if he wasn’t such a weak fuck up.Then he thought further back on every stupid thing his shitty self-esteem had caused and he wanted to scream, he actually felt physically ill with it. The next image that came to mind was Cas's bloodied face, looking up at him with that resigned hurt as he beat on him repeatedly in the library, the look in his eye when Dean had raised the angel blade above his head, as though Cas really thought Dean might kill him. A far off voice noted that his breath was too fast, he was hyperventilating. And now the thought of Amara, out there somewhere, a looming threat, all because of him.. yet again. Dean felt a roll of nausea at the deep disgust that was slicing him from the inside out, he truly, deeply hated himself. He knew that.

His dad had chided him for having emotions for this very reason, if Dean had just been stronger, more capable of withstanding, things would be different he thought. He could feel his heart racing, slamming against his chest like he was being punched over and over. He sat up in the bed and tried to focus on the setting sun outside the window, as his chest heaved.

“You’re okay, you’re okay,” he whispered to himself, feeling a hot wetness fill his eyes, he tried to hold it back but soon felt it overcome him, cracking over into a full sniffing, ugly cry, “No, I’m really not,” he sobbed through gritted teeth.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean struggles to accept things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey so I just posted this chapter and then added another section to the end so make sure you saw that!

The copper smell of freshly spilled blood was something so routine to Dean that it never really shocked him, but when he looked down at his hands, slick with deep red blood to the elbows, he began shaking wildly as though it was the very first time all over again. Alistair stood over him, watching like the diligent teacher he was, as Dean carved a flap of wet skin into the stomach of the woman on his wrack. He tried to control his nervous response, the deep shuddering, but she was screaming in a hysterical cant-catch-your-breath staccato of shrieks as he delicately pulled back the flap revealing the muscle beneath.

Alistair liked it when Dean did it like this, very slowly, one thin layer at a time, it was the way he had taught him, “Oh _beautiful_ work Dean!” he said in that slimy voice of his, elongating the words. The woman’s scream was becoming a repetitive drilling sound, losing all context and meaning until it was just a noise. Dean could feel it burring through his pounding head, “stop!” Dean begged her, “stop, please!” but she didn’t stop, the screams continued, horrific blood curdling screams, until very slowly and then all at once Dean realized it was his own voice screaming. He was the one with the skin pulled back, his delicate body naked and raw, Alistair was making Dean cum while he sliced into him, it was a neat trick aimed at psychologically annihilating him, and it always worked. He closed his eyes against the migraine inducing sound of his own pleading and by the time he opened them he was in a public place standing with the Blade in his hand and a trail of mutilated corpses around him, his entire body drenched in hot blood. He looked around helplessly searching through the bodies, looking for somebody. _Sam_ … there he was, ripped to shreds in Dean’s hands.

“No, shit… no, Sam!” he could feel himself blubbering frenziedly, “no, no, no, no” he spat the words out in quick succession like a single word.

Someone placed their hand on his shoulder, more soft and comforting than he deserved.

_NO! Get away from me!_

“Dean! Wake up” the person pleaded, “Dean?”

His eyes flew open, as his body instinctively launched from the bed, slamming into the nearest wall, smacking out a gust of air from his lungs. He looked around, still unsure of where he was or who was touching him. He could still see red.

“Dean? Are you with me?” the person said. It was a woman, a nurse, “you’re okay Dean you’re in hospital okay, you are safe” she said in a soft Boston accent, clutching at the gold cross necklace around her neck.

He stared at her, eyes wide and unseeing as he felt his heart rate slowly return to normal and his breath catch up with itself.

“I’m sorry” he muttered, “I uh… Sorry… I don’t uh”

She patted his arm, “it’s okay sweetheart” she smiled, “We’re gonna give you some sleeping pills now okay so you can get some rest, yeah? It’s only 11pm”

He felt as though his brain was not processing properly, it took him a few seconds too long to understand everything she said. He very rarely had been woken from the midst of a nightmare that bad and if he had, he had never then been asked to carry out a conversation afterwards.

“Okay” he said, a little too weak for his liking.

The nurse nodded and exited the room. Through the open door he could see the other patients were out in the halls, bleary and obviously woken from sleep, trying to see what was going on. The nurse was waving them back towards the rooms saying _shows over._

He never really had to have nightmares in front of other people before (especially other people who weren’t hunters) - he had always thought nothing much of his dreams but all of a sudden he realized normal people don’t sleep like this. Even in a mental hospital all the other patients were looking at him like _he_ was the one who was fucked up.

 

The nurse came back a moment later, as Dean sat back down on the bed. It was a bit sweaty but he didn’t want to mention it to her, to save himself the humiliation of her changing the sheets like he was a child who wet the bed. She passed him the pill and he swallowed it without a second thought.

 

The next morning he woke up gently, in a way that he hadn’t experienced for years and years. He sat up, rubbing at his eyes _,_ and for a moment he noticed himself burying the events of the night before, like he did every other day when he would get up and go to the bunker kitchen with a grin and tease Sam as though nothing was wrong. But here everything was different - all the things wrong with him were dragged into the light, shoved under his nose like a dog that’s done a piss in the house. Part of what made him think he was okay all these years was his unusual life situation, as soon as he was taken out of that context and put in a 'normal' person one, things became obvious. It had happened that year with Lisa too - she had been so concerned about him all the time, over things that he had always seen as 'normal' ('what do you mean other people don't drink whisky all day?') A conversation he had with Lisa flashed through his mind at that moment, she had told him “you’ve got so much buried in there, and you push it down and you push it down… do you honestly think you can go through life like that and _not_ freak out? Just, what? Drink half a fifth a night and you’re good?” He had feigned outrage at that, at the time. But he knew she was telling the truth, not just because Veritas made her, and not just Lisa’s version of the truth but a universal objective truth. He had just gotten _so damn good_ at pretending he was fine. He rubbed his hands over his face, noticing a distinct tremor in his fingers, _fuck_ , he thought, _get a grip._

 

As he shuffled out of his room he noticed some other patients staring daggers at him, clearly unappreciative of the midnight wake up call. He nodded his head, repressing a frown apologetically. In the haze of morning his hopes of escape seemed futile - all he had to do was get through today and tomorrow Sammy would be here to get him. That was it, one more night. So he headed off to the food line in the dining room, feeling strangely fragile. 

He picked at his food, the deep apathy that often infected him was profound today and it often made him lose his appetite. Not to mention the nausea. He tried to put a bit of hash brown in his mouth but the second it touched his taste buds he drooled it back out as though it was inedible.

“The hash browns really that bad here?”

Dean looked up to see Ann standing over him with a tray of food.

“Mmm” was all he managed.

Ann sat down across from him at that, she had two bowls of fruit and one of cereal on her tray, which she tucked into with glee.

“Nausea?” she asked.

Dean nodded, “don’t know what’s wrong with me” he muttered.

“You said alcoholic right? Well that would do it,” she half laughed at his obliviousness.

“Mmm yeah that” he mumbled. He could feel himself being rude but he really couldn’t manage much else. He was feeling so self-hating after last night that he really couldn’t muster the strength to be social.

“That’s why you’ve got the shakes there too,” she said, pointing at the tremor in his hand.

“What do you know about it” Dean said, in a monotone growl.

“Oh I know a whole lot about a whole lot my darling,” she said spooning cereal into her mouth, with a sad smile.

Dean wanted her to leave him alone, he had no idea why the hell she had latched onto him so much but it needed to end. But then the thought of telling her to fuck off and going through this without a single person to talk too made him recoil.

He wished Sam were here.

“So that was quite a show last night” she said, nonchalant. Dean looked up at her properly for the first time since she’d sat down, anger masking the humiliation on his face.

“No judgement” she said holding her hands up in surrender, “I know what it’s like okay, I get it. I lost my whole family… and every time I sleep I see it over and over,” the way she said it made Dean think she had voiced it many times in here, as though it was one of the issues she had constantly been speaking to the doc about.

“Do you talk about it with the doctor a lot?” Dean said what he was thinking without a second thought.

She laughed a little, “oooh yes… you know it won’t kill you to talk about it, it helps.”

“I don’t want to get used to being weak,” Dean muttered.

To that Ann stopped eating and stared at him, “do you think I’m weak Dean?”

“No I don’t even know you” he shook his head.

“If I’m not weak then neither are you” she said, “We’re all just humans Dean.”

But the truth was he wasn’t really sure he considered himself human anymore.

 

They sat in silence for a while as Dean fruitlessly sifted through his food, he thought about Ann with the easy demeanor, which covered her sad story and wondered if that was how he came across too. Maybe the easy demeanor part was a touch too far but still. She seemed so… _fine_ , yet here she was in this place.

“You seem too okay to be here,” Dean said, looking in her crystal blue eyes for some indication of her sadness.

“I think you have a pretty skewed impression of what a person with mental illness is like” she laughed, “It’s often pretty invisible.”

Dean was surprised at how shocked that statement made him, “Shit, yeah to be honest I never thought there was anything wrong with me because I wasn’t like some drooling nutbag you’d see on Cuckoo’s nest or whatever, I just thought… I’m holding it together therefore I’m okay,” he quickly looked back down at his food, feeling strangely embarrassed by his admission.

“Just because you’re holding it together doesn’t mean you don’t need a bit of help right?”

“Yeah… I guess so” Dean shrugged. He didn't know how to tell her that he just didn't believe he deserved the help, he felt too far gone for any of it anyway, he just needed to slog it through this shit life, doing his best to make up for everything he'd done, that was all he could do and all he deserved. 

 

* * *

 

Doctor Parker was looking at him with an exasperated face as he sat cross-armed on her couch, staring at the painting on the wall. He was finding it very hard to not be belligerent. Everything about this place felt like a direct affront to the entire persona he had cultivated over the years, it was a persona, which he now realized, struggled when taken out of its usual context. He didn’t even know how to not be belligerent anymore.

“Why are you so worried about therapy Dean?” She said, after a few minutes of silence, her ‘professional’ voice dropping away, “seriously what is the problem here?”

Dean snapped his gaze towards hers. She was wearing a neat pale blue suit today, which looked so striking against her dark skin that for a moment Dean felt slightly softened towards her.

He forced himself to shut down again, “I can’t…”

“Come on, we don’t have to do any therapy okay, just… just tell me why you are so afraid of it?” she said, closing her notebook purposefully. Her tone of voice was more familiar than the one she used when she was being serious and ‘doctor-y’ it was like she was talking to a sibling or something. He had definitely used this voice with Sam a few times.

“I am not afraid” Dean spat, “I just…”

“Just what!” she barked, irritated.

“I just don’t want to open that flood gate okay! I can’t, otherwise I wont be able to do my job and look after my brother, I can’t be in a place like this, talking about my fucking feelings or bad things will happen, I am serious if I open that can of worms there will be no way of putting it back in, believe me,” he shouted, the hoarseness and volume of his voice starling him, he felt himself rant, every word stumbling onto the next without stopping.

Doctor Parker leant back in her chair with a satisfied expression on her face, her doctor voice returning, “You know when you go on a plane and they tell you in the safety briefing to put on your own lifejacket or oxygen mask first before you help others? Pretty good metaphor for life that… You have to look after yourself now or else you _really_ won’t be able to do your job. You have been running on fumes Dean and you have to accept that things can get better, that things don’t have to be this hard, or else they’re just going to get worse and worse.”

Those words sat between them for a while as Dean breathed against his shaking gut, the spasm that was forcing him to be aware of his body’s frailty. He saw a flash of blood in the corner of his eye, and thought about just how much things _had_ been getting worse and worse over the years.

“Who is the most important person in your life Dean?” Doctor Parker asked snapping him back to the room.

“Sam” he said without thought, “Cas too.”

“Your brother and?”

“Cas is a long time friend” Dean nodded along to his words, he had never really said that out loud before.

“Do you think they care about you?”

“I guess,” Dean sighed, “Yeah they do... Sam was desperate for me to stay here, I guess that means he cares.”

He thought about Sam’s pleading face the day he’d come here and felt a fresh punch to the gut.

“Do you think your behavior affects them?” she said, scribbling something on her newly reopened notebook.

Dean wanted to say no but he knew that wasn’t true, “yes” he said begrudgingly, “I’ve done a lot of stupid shit, and a lot of it has affected them pretty badly.”

He felt his breath hitch at the spike in heart rate that idea elicited.

She looked at him empathetically, and he wondered how sad his face looked right now. He instinctively went to perk up and paint on a false grin but he was too exhausted for it.

“I’m just so tired” he muttered, “I am so fucking tired with myself I am the most tiring person on the planet doc, and I’m tired with… everything.”

She nodded, “It is very common for people with depression and PTSD to feel as though they are constantly maintaining a mask and that can be very tiring,” she said.

Dean just stared at her, blinking furiously at the accuracy of it, “yeah.”

Parker took a long breath, as though contemplating. Dean had a flash of worry at what she might say next, at any given moment she was liable to unravel him entirely.

“I think you learnt from a very young age that your needs and emotional wellbeing were not as important as other peoples, when you were little that other person was Sam and continued to be so, and it doesn’t surprise me what kind of work you went on to do, considering it again revolves around looking after others to your own detriment.”

“Yeah but there is nothing wrong with that” Dean felt himself getting hot in the face, the defensiveness he had practiced with himself for years and years spilling from his lips, “I save people.”

“You could still do your job and look after yourself at the same time you know that right?” Doctor Parker uncrossed her legs and leant forwards, Dean looked at her pointed-toe pale blue heels that matched her suit and for a brief second he thought of those shoes covered in blood, him standing over her with the blade in his hand. He rubbed his hands over his face trying to banish the thought.

“I hate myself,” he muttered, not meaning to say it out loud. He thought of Crowley saying that to him the night he got the mark, _‘your problem mate, is that nobody hates you as much as you do.’_

The doctor leaned back at that, “Why do you hate yourself?” she asked. Dean felt as though saying that out loud was some earth-shattering thing but she was just looking at him unfazed, as though he had just told her _it’s nice weather today._

“I’ve done a lot of shit and I just don’t think I deserve…” he cut himself off, shaking his head.

“Deserve to be happy?” She said, more as a statement than a question.

“So if I don’t deserve to be happy then I don’t see how this therapy thing can work,” Dean grunted, “cause that’s the aim isn’t it?”

“Ah I see, now we get to your real problem with therapy hmm?” she smiled, trying to lighten the moment, “well what you have to understand is that feeling is actually a symptom of what has gone haywire up there” she tapped on her own head at that. Dean still couldn’t really accept that anything was haywire in his brain, despite the fact that half of him knew it.

“You have to trust me when I tell you that a lot of those thoughts are not real or justified” Dean looked unconvinced, “think about someone with a delusional disorder like Schizophrenia right? For someone in that position one thing we deal with is coming to terms with what is real and what isn’t, to those people there are things that _really_ seem real or right there in front of them which _just aren’t_ in reality… so in the same way with someone like you, there are thoughts and self beliefs which seem unshakingly real, but just like a hallucination, they aren’t real and are simply a symptom.”

“I don’t know if I like being compared to someone like that,” Dean said defensively.

The doctor shrugged, “sorry” she didn’t really seem sorry.

Dean let out a long, loud sigh and leant forward with his elbows on his knees, his face in his hands.

“You _do_ deserve to be happy,” she said as he covered his face, “And you deserve to live.”

At that last sentence he felt tears prick his eyes, hot and slimy, because for the first time he realized that in truth he didn’t believe he deserved to live a long happy life, or any life of much at all.

He raked his hands through his hair, scratching at his scalp, “I uh… I know this isn’t normal” he muttered, holding himself back from really crying, “I just uh,” he cleared his throat, “It’s hard to uh…”

He couldn’t find the words to finish a sentence, everything he could possibly say was too depressing to be him. He didn’t want to be this guy.

So that’s what he told her, “I don’t want to be like this.”

She nodded, her eyes serious, shadowed beneath her heavy hoods, and perfect thick eyebrows.

“You know I’ve treated a lot of soldiers with PTSD and although a lot of them don’t want to go near a war ever again, I’ve had a number of clients who _want_ to keep going but they know if they don’t keep topping up their fuel they’re going to run out of gas and won’t be able to do their jobs anymore. They come to me when they can to make sure they’re staying steady… maybe that’s how you can look at it? ”

Dean sat back deeper into the couch at that thought, he had never considered the idea before, “It’s just my… dad… he was such a hardass and I had to look after Sam and I had to train all the time and work… his uh” Dean struggled for a moment to remember his cover story, “he used to do the sort of bounty hunting shit Sam and I do sometimes, he also used to be a marine, so uh… basically since I was a little kid I’ve been doing this crap,” he felt as though his voice sounded awkward and anxious as he spoke, which annoyed him to no end, “and it was no emotions, all business… emotions were what got you killed.”

Doctor Parker smiled and Dean looked at her as though he had no idea why she would smile at that, “a lot of the time parents can be struggling in their own way and they end up teaching their kids the wrong things, because quite frankly they either don’t know any better or are in too bad a place to know what they’re doing to their kids… Our parents can be mirrors of certain behaviors we end up with as adults.”

“So that whole ‘they fuck you up, your mom and dad’ thing is true then?” Dean snorted. He wasn’t about to bother defending his dad at this point.

“Yeah sometimes” Doctor Parker laughed, “a lot of early experience sets up the foundations for our cognition, positive and negative.”

“Why’d you have to go and be so nerdy about it just when we were breaking the ice” Dean grinned, “You and Sam would get along well.”

“I think we get along pretty well too right?” she smiled.

“Yeah I guess I could get used to you.”

* * *

 

Dean came out of therapy in a daze, feeling separated from his body. Despite his apprehension he actually did feel a bit lighter after speaking to Doctor Parker, as though he had finally been able to release a little bit of what he had been holding in. The lack of judgement on her face throughout the whole thing also made him feel a bit strange, he had always just assumed that if he ever said anything he was feeling that whoever had to hear it would immediately judge him – he realized that he was probably the judgemental one all along.

 

A sign that said ‘AA’ was slotted into the bracket on the wall beside room 2B as he passed. There were a few people setting up inside, the chairs in rows this time, facing the front. He paused at the door, surprised that he actually was thinking about going in. Fuck that Doctor Parker had really got to him.

“Come on in!” a rotund man with a Santa Claus beard boomed at him as he moved a chair into the end row, finishing the set up.

Dean looked around to check the man was talking to him.

“Yes you!” the man laughed. Dean stepped inside the door and moved slowly towards the seats.

The man watched him, obviously amused by the dread on Dean’s face.

“My name’s Duke” the guy said, holding his hand out to shake.

Dean accepted it and smiled, “Dean.”

“Okay Dean, this your first meeting?” Duke asked, pulling his belt around the hanging lip of his stomach. Duke was wearing normal clothes, and had the cheery manner of someone who wasn’t locked up in here. He obviously just came to lead the AA meetings, Dean thought.

“Yeah” Dean muttered.

“Okay well fantastic my man you are going to be fine! Try to contribute if you can but no pressure at all.”

As the room filled up Duke moved to the front, to the single chair that faced the group.

Once everyone had settled, he clapped once and stood, “Okayyy let’s get started with the serenity prayer – all together”

In unison the group chanted “ _God grant us the **serenity**  to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”_

Dean looked around awkwardly as they spoke, unaware of the words himself. Instead he had to just sit and listen, each word sticking him like a knife… _accept the things we can’t change and courage to change the things we can…_ if that didn’t fit his situation perfectly he didn’t know would did. He thought about all the shit he couldn’t change – his life, hunting, and all that entailed, the past, everything that had happened to him – but for the first time he had a flash of knowing, that although _those_ things were unchangeable, his feeling and behaviors were the things that fell under that ‘things we can change’ umbrella. Fuck, AA had got him already.

“I’m not gonna read out the 12 steps because it can be a bit… religious… for some folks but I urge you to read it for yourself in the copy of the big book we have here” Duke spoke to the room with great oratory skill, his voice was deep and booming like a stage actor, “I _will_ read out steps 8, 9, and 10 because I think they are worth it – so 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.”

Dean closed his eyes and breathed to steady himself, he couldn’t help think about Doctor Parker’s question of whether his behavior had affected Sam and Cas, he wondered if he needed to make amends with them. The last one also hit him pretty hard – the idea of taking a personal inventory was new to him, and quite frankly was probably what he needed to be doing. He guessed it was sort of like what Doctor Parker had said about those vet’s who come in to her to keep themselves ‘topped up’ – those guys were keeping a personal inventory, staying aware of themselves and their problems so that they couldn’t sneak up on them.

Next Duke looked out on the group, searching for a more seasoned AA goer. Dean hadn’t really looked around at the others yet, he was realizing now that he had barely noticed a single other person aside from Ann since he’d come here. All the men and women around him were everyday people he noted, a bit of a ragtag ramshackle group but nonetheless normal.

A man stood up with a neatly parted ‘professional’ hair cut, he looked a bit like an investment banker or some such boring suit type, but here without his suit he spoke, “My name is Alex and I’m an alcoholic” he said.

The group chanted back, “Hi Alex.” Dean was shocked that they really did that cliché.

“So I have been doing AA for a while now” he laughed nervously, “uh sober for 3 months” he smiled and the group clapped for him. Dean felt himself clapping along too.

Alex continued, “There was no denying I had a problem with alcohol for a long time but like pretty much every addict, addiction is just a symptom of a much bigger problem… and I think that it always, _always_ is… alcoholism is so tricky in that it constantly whispers in your ear, hypnotizing you into thinking you’re okay, you’re different from the others, it just buries everything that’s wrong in your life until it all burst from the surface like a pimple,” some people laughed in recognition, which made Dean’s stomach drop. The recognition didn’t make him want to laugh it made him want to cry.

“The funny thing about it is it really doesn’t fix anything at all – in fact the best description of it is when Dr. Vincent Felitti, said: “It is hard to get enough of something that almost works.” That’s the thing though right? We are all madly going after a solution that actually never quite works? And while its not working, but you’re still holding onto hope that it will, it is quietly destroying your life, there is no alcoholic in the world that doesn’t cause collateral… Basically I just got sick and tired of always feeling sick and tired as they say and I started dealing with myself. I realised I don’t have a drinking problem, I have a fucking… _living_ problem.”

And with that Alex returned to his seat as the group clapped, shaken by his profundity.

Dean wanted to puke, his mind started whirling, _No I cannot start buying into this crap, I am FINE! Enough! NO, IM NOT FINE SHUT THE FUCK UP, I am stop it, suck it up princess, I need to go fuck myself, get a grip._ Someone said his name. _Shit._

He looked around to see Duke staring straight at him, “What?” Dean said, unsure of the question.

“I asked if you want to share?” Duke said, “how about you tell us one good drunk memory and one bad.”

Dean chuckled a little with discomfort, he felt on the spot _again_ , “Uh… the good one is easy… I was really young and snuck out to go to CBGB’s in New York one night, I knew my dad would kill me but it was worth it man, the bands and the people, I honestly had never seen anything like it and everyone seemed to be living a different version of reality, where things were just good times” he smiled, “I got so wasted that night, I was dancing and making out with all sorts of crazy lookin’ chicks and for one night I felt like I wasn’t stuck and… doomed” by the end he wasn’t smiling anymore, he cleared his throat, “worst was recent I think… I uh wont go into detail but I went behind my brothers back in a way that made him not want to talk to me again, so I went off and got shit faced for a bit, my tolerance is so high though that I was more just drinking for the sake of it, I was just sort of numbed out… and anyway I did something really… really fuckin stupid” he felt his mouth go dry at the thought of the Mark, “It was something that set a whole lot of other bad shit into motion and had a lot of uh what did he call it - collateral – damage… so yeah” Dean looked down at his clasped shaking hands, the sick feeling in his stomach still there since breakfast.

Duke smiled softly, seeming aware of how much it took for Dean to say any of that, he clapped and the room clapped with him, “thank you for that Dean.”

Dean nodded, trying to avert his gaze. For a moment he felt proud of himself, that he had spoken at all… but then the habitual self-hating diatribe that played on repeat in his brain began. Jumping all over the place it said _You don’t deserve to be okay,_ then, _YOU ARE FINE YOU WEAK FUCKIN’ PRINCESS,_ then, _you are going to die if you let any of this shit and any of these people in, it is not going to end well._

His first thought was how much he would love a drink right now, or to just fucking die – and for the first time instead of getting a drink and burying his feelings until they turned into a lump of coal, he sat sober in a room and let himself _accept the things he couldn’t change, and gave himself the courage to change the things he could._

Just hoping he would have the wisdom to know the difference.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heyo i'm back. Sorry about my weird posting schedule (or lack of one) I hope to post a few more chapters coming up now more regularly so enjoy! x
> 
> Dean has his last day in hospital and finds himself feeling resistant.

 

That night Dean accepted the sleeping pills without hesitation – he couldn’t put himself through the embarrassment of another night-time performance. As he lay in bed waiting for them to kick in he felt a tightness in his stomach like he was bracing for a punch that just wouldn’t come. The day had really fucked with him – he had felt himself starting to buy into it, starting to give in to the idea that maybe he could get better therefore implying he had something to get better from… but almost as quickly as that thought had rolled in he felt himself shutter up, push it down. Suddenly he understood the old adage of ‘admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery’ because right now he could _feel_ himself resisting admitting and accepting it, and he could see how much his refusal to do so had been what lead him here… he thought of Doctor Parker when she said “You have been running on fumes Dean and you have to accept that things can get better, that things don’t have to be this hard, or else they’re just going to get worse and worse” and the idea of that frightened him. But then another part of him stepped in to remind him that the reason he couldn’t admit or accept it was because it’s not true, _I’m fine, this is self indulgent, this shit will get people killed, I’m being selfish, wah toughen up Winchester_ – and so on it went. Dean was used to listening to that voice, it was the one he believed first and foremost and so despite himself that is the voice that prevailed.

“one more day and this will all be over” he told himself, but the truth wasn’t quite so simple, nothing would ever be the same again after this. He felt himself yank back that first step towards softening his resistance. He felt himself begin to boil over with rage – _how could Sam do this to me, how dare these people make me feel like there’s something wrong with me, these FUCKERS are just trying to make me some docile little cog in a machine, they have no idea what I’ve sacrificed, I don’t deserve this shit!_

He grit his teeth against the fury that rose within him at the thought that this was now an indelible part of his story – he was a guy who has been to a mental hospital, a guy who had been diagnosed with PTSD –and Sam and these doctors were the ones who had done this to him. The thought made him slam his head back against the pillow in a weak protest against it, _NO this isn’t right!_ He would have to bury this experience deep down, claim it was just a misunderstanding, shrug it off if Sam ever brought it up, sweep it under the rug as he always had… he wondered if Sam would go along with that ever again now. He thought about the AA meeting and how he had felt himself relating to it and he made tight fists until his nails bit into the soft flesh of his palms. He didn’t have a problem, as far as he was concerned he was reacting normally to abnormal situations. Fuck this, how can they judge him correctly when they had no idea about his life?

 

The next morning he sat silently fuming through the physical exams, the chaperoned trips to the bathroom, the supervised eating, he grit his teeth through the nurses trying to persuade him to take medication and through his last session with Doctor Parker.

“You seem angry today,” she said, noticing his tight jaw and bouncing knee.

“Good observation there Sherlock” he spat back sarcastically.

“What happened since yesterday? I felt like maybe we were getting somewhere” she frowned, unable to cover her clear disheartenment.

“All this is bull, you know that? This is like some fucking cult or something you keep saying all the right shit and I start believing it, next thing you know you’ve got me doped up and docile… well you know what? I do not have a problem, I am not buying into your AA, Freudian bullshit okay?”

Doctor Parker didn’t respond for a moment as she collected her thoughts, “I can’t force you Dean but I hope you understand that I have no hidden agenda here… What we do is based on data and scientific research.”

“I know that” he growled, his jaw tight, “but you don’t know anything about me or my life.”

Doctor Parker stays silent for a while as she stares at Dean in a way that unnerves him, he feels as if she is looking straight through him. She wanted to read him, wanted to see something in him that tells her exactly the right thing to say.

“It’s okay Dean,” she said softly and he feels his insides hollow out at the understanding in her voice, he wished she would just hate him, it would be easier for him.

“You need to come to an understanding in your own time I get that… All I can do is offer my expertise and advice, and wait for you to process things in your own way, I can’t force you” she shrugged and smiled. They sat in silence for a moment.

Dean suddenly felt an awful lot like he was about to cry.

“I’m sorry, I uh” he said as he felt the hot tears prick in the corners of his eyes and work their way down his flushed cheeks. He shot a hand out to wipe them away, embarrassed, “Sorry I don’t know why I’m crying… I uh” he cleared his throat, “I feel all over the fuckin’ place right now.”

Doctor Parker doesn’t flinch, “It’s totally normal Dean, this has been a very emotionally draining experience I know that, and your also experiencing some effects from the alcohol withdrawal so it’s to be expected… it can be very hard to have to face yourself Dean and it can make us feel like nothing will ever be right again but you have to understand that things will get better if you just let them.”

Dean blinked at her, trying desperately to stop this shameful display of emotion, “I’m not sure I’m ready for that” he muttered, “I really don’t know if I will ever be”

Doctor Parker let out a longsuffering sigh, “Trust me, now that everything is out in the open and we’ve put a name to it, things will start to get better”

“No hiding now I guess” Dean scoffed.

She smiled, “It’s pretty hard to keep ignoring something once you’ve looked it in the face.”

Dean smirked oh she had _nooo_ idea just how good he really was at ignoring his feelings.

 

Sam came to pick him up later that day as the 72 hours came to an end. Dean thought he would happier to leave but the idea of returning out to his life was terrifying after such a brash and disturbing interruption from the regularly scheduled programming. Sam was waiting at the nurses’ station with Doctor Parker when Dean was brought out to meet him now dressed in his old clothing. Sam smiled at him but his eyes were sad as he pulled him into a hesitant hug, “you okay?” he said.

“Yeah Sammy” Dean muttered.

“Okay Dean, well I think your stay was quite productive, even if you don’t think so” Doctor Parker smiled, “I have given Sam a packet with information that you need to know going forward, as well as your prescriptions and numbers for local psychologists,” Dean opened his mouth to protest but she held a finger up, “You will need to make an appointment with a therapist as soon as possible okay? And the medication is up to you but if you do start taking it make sure that you book an appointment for 2 weeks after the start date with me… the number for my usual practice is on a card in the packet” she said pre-empting the question on Sam’s lips, “can you promise me you’ll do that Dean? At the very least, can you promise you will see a therapist?”

Dean sighed, “sure” he said begrudgingly.

Sam looked as if he was finally ready to spit out whatever thought he’d been chewing on. He looked at Dean with a sorry expression, then turned to Doctor Parker, “This might be a weird question but… are you sure he’s okay to come home?” Dean glared at Sam with all he could muster.

“He should be fine Sam,” she said putting her hand on his arm for a moment. Sam tried not to look at Dean.

 

As they said their thank-yous and good byes to the doctor, Dean caught sight of Ann. He felt like he needed to say goodbye to her too, seeing as she’d gone out of her way to be nice to him.

“You’re leaving,” she said as he approached her.

“Is it the lack of hospital pyjamas that gave it away?” he snorted.

“And that look of total utter fear in your eyes” she said, pointing at his face, “Now listen here, don’t be such a wimp”

Dean was taken aback, “uh?”

“Not facing your shit makes you more of a wimp than having shit does in the first place, you get me?” she said, her eyebrows raised and her tone stern.

“I think so?” Dean laughed, “thanks… I hope you… get better” he said a little awkwardly before she pulled him into a warm, quick hug.

“You too darling” she whispered into his ear.

When Dean returned to where Sam was waiting he could see a look of amusement on Sam’s face.

“She likes you,” he teased.

Dean jabbed him in the arm, “shut up. Let’s get the hell outta here.”

 

The car ride was tense. Sam had insisted he drive, which had immediately put Dean in a bad mood, as well as the fact that he had insisted on filling Dean’s prescriptions.

“I’m not taking them you know” Dean said as the sound of rattling pill bottles started to feel like far too much of an elephant in the room.

Sam shot a look at him, “What do you mean you aren’t taking them?”

“I didn’t take them in there and I’m not taking them now, okay?” Dean grumbled, “and don’t you think for a second that this is gonna become a…thing”

Sam almost laughed, “a thing?”

“Yeah a fuckin’ thing… a Sam thing, a thing where you make a big deal out of something” Dean crossed his arms and stared out at the road.

Sam nodded, “Dean it doesn’t have to be a _thing_ if you don’t want it to be, its in your court man, your reaction is on you… but either way I’m going to look after you and make sure you get better”

“Oh Jeez” Dean moaned, “I’m fine”

Sam laughed, “Okay sure”

They rode in silence for a while as Dean seethed… Dean desperately wanted to put all of this behind him, leave it in the rear view mirror.

“How was it in there by the way?” Sam said softly.

Dean didn’t move his head to look at Sam, “Fuckin’ humiliating” he muttered under his breath.

 

When they returned to the bunker everything felt strange and silent inside. Dean didn’t want to give Sam the opportunity to say anything so as soon as the door shut behind them he strode towards his bedroom and slammed the door. Sam sighed, he really didn’t want to have to be the prison guard here but he knew there needed to be some new rules.

Sam marched to Dean’s room and opened the door, “this has to stay open from now on” he said. Dean looked up at him with the confusion of someone being spoken to in a foreign language, “What did you just say?”

Sam huffed and stepped into the room, “I said I would like you to keep your door open”

Dean stared at him incredulously, “uh no”

Sam grit his teeth and trudged back out of the room, leaving the door wide open. Dean was going to make this whole thing difficult, he was going to push back until Sam just gave in and gave up then he would go back to pretending nothing was wrong and that nothing had happened… just like always. There was no way Sam was going to fall for that this time. Sam sat at a table in the library and slammed down the packet Doctor Parker had given him. He opened it and read through every single information sheet three times over – he was going to be sure that he knew everything there was to know about Dean’s conditions and he was going to fucking help him no matter what Dean said.

 

Blissfully unaware of that fact, Dean lay back in his bed and let Zeppelin fill his ears. He felt himself returning back to normal with every passing moment – maybe this wouldn’t be so hard? Just like when he came back from Hell or back from Purgatory, he would return to normal, sweep it all away and Sam would just go along with it. It was all going to be fine, he decided. With his eyes shut he reached to the bedside table and felt around for the bottle of whisky he kept there. When he couldn’t feel it his eyes sprang open, he jumped up and started searching… the whisky was gone, the flask was gone, even his back up beers were gone? He dashed towards the kitchen and started slamming through the cabinets… gone, gone gone. _Sam._ He got rid of it all. _Fuck!_

Dean’s hands were still shaking like someone with Parkinson’s, which made him feel frail and embarrassed, but he didn’t _need_ a drink, he simply _wanted_ one… there’s a difference he told himself.

 

Sam felt Dean’s energy before he even approached. He was antsy, agitated.

“I threw out the booze,” Sam said without looking up from the pamphlet on alcoholism.

Dean stood in place and stared at Sam, “are you seriously going to do this?”

“Do what?” Sam asked, although he already knew what.

“Don’t play dumb” Dean was teetering close to rage, “We have more important things to worry about Sam, whether or not I enjoy a few too many beverages or if I have a couple nightmares is _NOT_ fucking important, you get that? We have the darkness out there, we have Cas god knows where and you want me to sit around and do trust exercises? I _CAN’T_ do that!”

“I don’t give a crap if you yell at me, I am not backing down from this!”

Dean let out a growl of annoyance, “GOD! You are such a pain in my ass, you know that!?”

“Yes Dean I know that” Sam said sardonically, “I am such a pain for trying to help you.”

“ohhh I should have known you wouldn’t let this all go after you fuckin locked me away in there” Dean rumbled as he began to pace, shaking his head as he spoke, “I knew it, I knew it” the cadence of his voice and the look in his eye was starting to appear more and more unhinged.

Sam sighed, “Dean, I’m sorry but if you don’t go to a therapist and start taking the medication the doctor prescribed… I’m going to have to… you wont be able to hunt anymore”

Dean looked at him wide eyed, “oh really? How are you going to stop me?” the two of them were now standing face to face and although Sam was trying to keep his body language firm but calm, Dean was fronting up to him, his chin up and his body amped.

“Your mental health has effected our work and safety Dean so this cannot go on any longer. You have one of three options here” he said coolly, “one, you and I go our separate ways, two, you go back to hospital, or three, you do what the doctor said… it’s up to you”

Sam holds his eye contact as Dean stares daggers into him, as if they were playing a game of chicken.

“If that’s how you feel Sammy” Dean whispered threateningly, “I’ll go pack my things.”

As Sam watched Dean go he felt like he’s been punched in the throat.

Dean slammed the bedroom door behind him and began to pace his room, muttering under his breath. _How dare Sam do this!_ Dean started pulling clothes out of drawers on the premise of packing. But instead of putting them in a bag he manically threw them from the drawers without taking a breath before grabbing the next one. His breath ran ragged as he propelled his belongings around the room, “fuckin’ Sam, this fuckin bullshit, I can’t believe this,” he muttered under his breath. Surrounded by the debris of his haphazard room destruction he paced and paced, making fists and cracking his knuckles. His thoughts were too fast to even understand as he wrung himself out, he wanted to make this internal energy external, express it in some way, he needed to get it _out_. He wanted to hurt something, someone, himself… but instead he felt the full force of a flashback hit him like a baseball bat striking a ball straight over the field fence and into the parking lot. He slid down the wall to the floor as his brain whiplashed him straight out of the bunker and into a monstermash of terrible memories, through a litany of horrifying images, events of his life piled up and overlapping until all he could make out was blood, pain, blood, pain and self hatred. He heard a scream rip out into the air and then a voice cut through all the noise –

“Dean! Hey, hey, hey, Dean!”

Dean anchored to the sound and suddenly he could feel the hands on his shoulder shaking him, the ground beneath him, the smell of the room, the light overhead and finally the face of Sam hovering before him.

“You back?” he said.

Dean cleared his throat, “sorry” was all he made out before his face crumpled and gave way to tears. Without hesitation Sam pulled his brother close, letting him sob hot wet tears into the front of this shirt as he rubbed circles on his spine.

“It’s okay” Sam whispered.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry” Dean garbled, “I’m sorry”

“It’s okay” Sam said again.

As Dean calmed he and Sam pulled apart until they were sat facing each other on the floor like children.

“You ready to stop pretending you’re okay yet? Or do you wanna go another round?” Sam smiled.

Dean closed his eyes and let out a shaky breath, “I _really_ hate this… I _hate it”_

“I know” Sam said, his voice thick with empathy.

"but I don't deserve..." he stopped, steadying himself, "but I don't think I deserve to be okay, after everything I've done" he murmured. 

Sam looked at him, horrified, "Dean, don't even start with that please, you know that isn't true."

"Do I know that?" Dean choked out.

"I'm not going to try to make you understand why you deserve to be happy Dean, I can't make you see that right now while you're not well... but I will promise you that you do, okay?" Sam said with pleading eyes. 

Dean sighed heavily, “This isn’t… you know this doesn’t come easy to me” Dean whispered, still not looking Sam in the eye.

“yeah and I know that going through what you’re going through doesn’t fit with how you see yourself… it’s hard for you to accept it when it feels like it’s destroying any sense of self you had” Sam said, matter of fact, “but that’s just how you feel now Dean, change is hard… but you...” Sam paused and grimaced, “you need to do this for me… please”

Dean looked up at the sky as if stemming further tears, then said quietly, “If you don’t feel safe… if you feel like I haven’t been stable enough for you to feel safe around or to make decisions, then I guess… then I care about that” Dean gripped his shaking hands together as if trying to make them stop, “so I will do it for you.”

Sam couldn’t help but let a bright smile burst onto his face, “really!?” he said.

“Yes really, no need to be so excited by it” Dean grumbled.

Sam pulled him into a hug for a moment, then got up, energized, “I’m going to make you an appointment with a therapist okay?”

Dean looked up at Sam and sighed, “okay.”

As he watched Sam bound out of the room, Dean knew that even if he couldn't and wouldn't do this for himself, he would for Sam. If Sam needed to see him play along with the doctors orders then he would, because even though he didn't deserve to be happy, Sam did.


End file.
